


Hollowed Out and Yearning

by blue_wonderer



Series: Olivarry Week 2017 [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Day 2: Memory Loss, Doomworld AU, Implied Eobard Thawne/Barry Allen, It counts because Oliver and Barry don't remember who they were before Doomworld, M/M, Memory Loss, Oliver is Damien's henchman, Or do they?, because Barry doesn't remember he hates Eobard, creepy eobard thawne, established Barry/Oliver relationship implied pre-Doomworld, there are non-graphic and implied consent issues with the eobard/barry relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 08:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11459880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_wonderer/pseuds/blue_wonderer
Summary: (Barry dives down for another kiss, as reckless as always.…Where had that thought come from?)Doomworld AU. Oliver is Damien's henchman. Barry is Thawne's... something else. Oliver and Barry don't know each other in this world, not really. There's no reason to feel this connection between them.But they do anyway, even if they can't remember why.





	Hollowed Out and Yearning

Darhk was a dick, but at least he didn't play Thawne's mind-fuck games. At least he didn't on Oliver. 

Darhk was twisted, had tortured Oliver for days and days, years ago, when he was young. When he was _malleable_. And now Oliver is a weapon to him, someone he can send out to eliminate the vigilantes and heroes who rose against Darhk, someone he can control, he can mock and demean as it suits him. He leaves Oliver alone beyond that, doesn’t flirt sickly with him like he does with Sara and Amaya. But the man had killed his parents. Killed his sister. Ages ago now. 

And still he wasn’t Thawne. 

“I just can’t—” Barry whispers, pressing the heel of his palm painfully against his forehead. “Sometimes, sometimes it’s like I’m _forgetting_ something. But I don’t know _what_.” 

Oliver had been sent by Thawne and Darhk to retrieve a thumb drive from Barry Allen, a resident scientist at Thawne's labs. Thawne and Darhk met infrequently, and Darhk didn’t always bring Oliver to these meetings, and yet Oliver had somehow crossed paths with the scientist several times before. 

This time, when Oliver had entered Barry’s lab, he’d found the other man curled on the ground, clutching his head. 

Oliver had been cold for years. Unfeeling and blank. It was the only way he could live with Darhk. It was the only way he could live with what Darhk did to him. With what Oliver did _for_ him. 

And yet, without knowing why, something in him had softened at the sight of Barry long enough for Oliver to kneel down and help the other man sit up. 

“Do you need anything?” Oliver asks, startled by his own soft voice. Darhk purposefully separates him from anyone and everyone. Oliver goes weeks without speaking to anyone sometimes. Barry doesn’t respond, just squeezes his eyes shut and presses harder against his forehead until his fingers shake. Oliver reaches up, takes the hand in his. Barry opens big, wet eyes and looks at him with a startled expression. 

“Ollie,” he whispers. _“Ollie.”_

Oliver frowns, suddenly feeling sluggish and disconnected, like he’s waking from a dream. “No one’s called me that in… years.” 

Barry blinks, wrinkles his brow. “I’m—sorry, Mr. Queen. I don’t—I don’t know why I…” he breaks off into a groan, reaching up with another hand to claw at his head. Oliver tenderly grasps that one, too, to prevent Barry from doing himself harm. 

“Stop, stop," Oliver hushes. "Don't do that. Do I—do I need to get Thawne?” He asks, carefully, gripping Barry’s hands harder when the other man tries to jerk away. 

“No!” Barry practically shouts, then cringes at what the action must do to his throbbing head. “No,” he rasps again. “Not him. Please.” 

“I don’t, I don’t understand, Allen,” Oliver murmurs. “You’re in pain. Thawne is—”

 _“I know what he is!”_ Barry hisses. “He’s a brilliant man. Accomplished. Handsome. I admire him. I wish I could _be_ him.” 

For some reason Oliver doesn’t understand, these words make a dark anger within him boil. It rises up in him and tastes like bile at the back of his throat. 

Barry laughs hysterically. “See? _Do you see?_ It’s like a-a _compulsion_. Every time—every time someone says _his_ name, every time he walks into the room. I—I feel like I have to _worship_ him. _Praise him._ ” 

His whole body is shaking now, the wetness in his eyes is starting to fall down his flushed cheeks. 

“It’s like I’m following a script I’ve never read before,” Barry continues. “I don’t know the lines, but I say them anyway. I don’t know the cues, but my body just acts on its own. Like—like…” 

“Like a puppet on a string,” Oliver murmurs. 

Inexplicably, that's the moment Barry chooses to kiss him. There’s salt on his lips from his tears, but he’s warm and soft. It’s electrifying and messy and- 

And _familiar._

Barry leans back, eyes wide. “I… I’m sorry. But I… I needed to do that. I _wanted_ to do it. It feels like I’ve _missed_ this. Does that make sense?” 

“It feels _un_ scripted,” Oliver says between panting breaths. “It feels _right_.” 

Like the only right thing that’s happened to him in all of these long years. 

Barry nods, parts his reddened and swollen lips. Desire suddenly punches low in Oliver’s belly at the sight. He reaches out, pulls the other man by his hips until Barry’s straddling him. Barry dives down for another kiss, as reckless as always. 

_…Where had that thought come from?_

Oliver clutches at the young scientist’s sides until he probably leaves finger-shaped bruises. Nothing that won’t heal in the next few minutes. 

_Why did he think that?_

Barry shudders above him, rolls his hips. “Ollie,” he says. “Ollie, Ollie, Ollie. How could I—how could I forget?”

 _“How could I forget?” Barry says with a wide grin as he wiggles his left hand at Oliver so the ring on his finger catches the light. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”_

An alarm on some machine goes off in the lab, startling them both and shattering the fragile things between them. 

“Oh no!” Barry cries, horrified, and throws himself backward so he’s crab-walking away from Oliver. “Oh no! I’m—I’m so sorry, Mr. Queen! I don’t know… I don’t know _what_ I…” 

“No!” Oliver says, standing quickly with his palms out to calm him down. “No, _I’m_ sorry. You—You can’t tell Thawne or Darhk. _Please._ ” 

Oliver has felt nothing but cold and pain for years, and yet now he shudders in fear. He doesn’t want to know what would happen to him if he pisses off Thawne. Darhk might protect him, might even congratulate him out of his vindictiveness toward Thawne. 

Or he might leave Oliver to Thawne’s tender care. 

Barry pales, too. “Of course not. Of course not. Never. This—this was some sort of—I don’t know what it was.” He breaks off, contemplative, eyes glazing as he looks to the middle distance in thought. “It felt…” 

“Familiar.” Oliver finishes. Barry nods.

“Like remembering a forgotten dream.” 

Footsteps make both of their heads snap up. Thawne is at the entrance, cool eyes raking over Barry before assessing Oliver in turn. “Is everything alright here? Bartholomew?” 

“I—”

“He has a migraine,” Oliver says, finally remembering his place. He stands at attention, head bowed, hands clasped behind his back, eyes averted. “I found him ill on the floor. He probably needs rest, Sir.” 

For some reason, ever since Barry's lips touched his, the cold hasn’t come back. Oliver longs for it now, exposed as he is under Thawne's gaze. The taste of bile rises again in his throat. 

“Is that right, Barry?" The way his eyes cast about Barry's face telegraphs how he doesn't miss Barry's kiss-swollen lips. "Come here.” Thawne opens his arms, a magnanimous, condescending gesture. 

Barry hesitates, and Oliver shouldn’t be looking but he is anyway, so he sees the uncertainty in Barry’s eyes. 

“Come, Barry,” Thawne says, harder. Barry goes, only hesitates minutely once more before he steps into Thawne’s embrace. Thawne wraps one arm low around Barry’s hips. The other snakes around narrow shoulders and ends with a firm grip to the back of Barry’s neck. He clutches Barry hard there, Oliver can see the white of his knuckles, and only loosens his grip when Barry finally bends his head forward to rest on Thawne’s shoulder. 

“What do you need, Barry?” Thawne recites, like he's reading from a script and prompting Barry's next line. Thawne tilts his head so he presses light kisses against the side of Barry’s throat. Pale eyes flick up to watch Oliver, looking for some sort of reaction. 

Oliver gives none, though something ineffable inside him twists horribly at the sight. 

“I need you, Eo," Barry responds by rote, the words pulled out of his mouth by a hook neither he nor Oliver can ever see. "Take me home." 

Thawne places one more open-mouthed kiss onto Barry’s skin. He rests his chin on Barry’s shoulder, a smirk curling his mouth as he reaches down and intertwines his hand with one of Barry’s. He brings their joined hands up, fingers intertwined. 

The ring on Barry’s finger catches the light. 

“Of course, husband,” Thawne responds. 

And then they’re gone and Oliver is left behind, hollowed out and yearning for something he can’t quite remember. 

**end.**

**Author's Note:**

> Gotta say... memory loss isn't my thing, so this was a struggle. Even if it was the only idea I had for all of the Olivarry prompts this week. 
> 
> Written very quickly this morning _because I decided at the last freaking minute to try and participate in Olivarry Week_. I'm sorry if it feels rushed, or a little melodramatic, or if there are mistakes (well, more than my usual, anyway :'D). 
> 
> Day 2 down!


End file.
